Cavum Victoria
by riyangendut
Summary: "Question one, what is the most efficient way to collect EXP?" Killing. Everyone knows the answer. Everyone stayed silent.


_**T for graphic violence.**_

The towering castle of the Demon King felt almost suffocating.

Having defeated all but three of the Demon Generals, our party advanced to the front line, where the last defense of both humanity and demon armies alike was being erected. This is trully the last stand, where the winner prevails and the loser faces imminent extinction, a trully unfair reality.

Then again, it was like that in my old world too.

Heh, funny that I thought less and less about my previous world. My original personality has been rewritten almost completely, my definition of _normal_ forgotten in the absurdity of this world. There are no rules, everything is fair as long as it is not human. But then they mercilessly struck down any human who harmed others, so isn't the law the height of hypocrisy?

In the core of this world is experience point, EXP, yet another unfair factor that completely destroys the balance. How did human survive before anyway? How could humanity defended themselves against the evolutionary monstrocity like demons and evil gods before the system came into place? Why did the gods sided with humans? How did they decide what is ' _good_ ', place it in human, and then decided that the demon armies are evil?

I wouldn't know. Most likely, none bothered to ask nor remember, not even the discriminated forces of evil called the Demon King.

Knowing several of their generals personally, I know that they aren't inherently evil. Vanir wasn't. Wiz wasn't. Wolbach wasn't. Even Maxwell and Beldia weren't. They have their own hearts, their own love, their own soul, proper feelings and determination. And yet we fought against them, branding everything that wasn't human as evil. We weren't that different, so why do we mercilessly cut each other?

Why can't we join our hands, grasping each other's heart over physical barrier?

 _What is evil?_

I never knew, and I would probably never know. Probably _I_ am evil.

And when we killed the Demon King, exterminated their forces, wiped down their traces from the world, then what?

Wouldn't this place be like my old world, making enemies among ourselves because we can't find any from beyond us? Would we turn our weapon upon our masters, challenging the gods, dragging them down from their throne and mercilessly slaughtering them as we have with the demons? Then what is humanity if not evil? Wouldn't claiming ourselves as having any shred of "Good" or "Justice" be the greatest lie? Is there really nothing for humanity other than infinite justification over justification for our attrocity, labeling everything as evil just because they aren't vital for our continued existence?

Wouldn't our existence be the greatest evil of all?

Even now, I probably wouldn't know.

"Wiz." I called out for the Lich, whose identity she kept secret from humans in fear of their unilateral judgment. "Come here."

"Yes?" Unsuspectingly, she stepped right to my side.

"Create Water. Freeze." Coating my left hand with ice shaped into a dagger, I plunged it into Wiz's left breast, piercing straight through her heart and coming out from her back.

"Ugh-" She coughed out black blood, splattering on my clothes. "Why...Kazuma..."

"Kazuma!" Numerous accusative shout aroused from the human forces.

"Silence! I can't believe none of you could see a Demon General among our ranks for this long. Look at her dark blood! She is a Lich!"

"I thought...we...are..." Her body dissolved into ash.

"What have you done?" For once, Darkness' attack hadn't missed its target, her fist meeting me squarely in my face. And yet I didn't budge.

"Maximum Strength and Toughness, a level higher than yours." I kicked her chest, sending her tumbling. "The resource with highest value in this world is indubitably EXP, a mechanism for human to exceed nonhumans, a system conveniently built and tailored for human survival. Question one, what is the most efficient way to collect EXP?"

 _Killing._

Everyone knows the answer. Everyone stayed silent.

"Question two, what gives someone the highest EXP points?"

 _Demon Generals._

"That is, strong non-humans. Spell Nullification." I erased all offensive spell directed at me—with my newfound source of mana, I could single-handedly destroy the entire human forces gathered here.

"Question three, what is the strongest non-human being in existence?"

 _The gods._ No one knows the answer save three of us.

Maybe for the first time in their existence, the two goddesses I acquitted with felt _fear._

Aqua was the first to move, weaving her spell into the fabric of the world itself, utilizing her divine power to the fullest to punish a puny human being whose hands still wet with the blood of his own companion.

And I mercilessly tore into her heart.

"Thank you, goddess-sama. You finally become useful for me." My hand was burning, as if crumbling into ashes as her heart deforms and corrupted me, enormous amount of magical energy entered my bloodstream. "There were times that I almost fell in love with you, but in the end, your terrible luck prevails."

"Kazuma…I…love…you…"

"I know. I wish I could say that I love you too." I pulled out my pitch-black arm, veins still pulsating on it, as if her heart refusing the death of its owner. Blood drenched me as the body of the dead goddess fell onto the ground.

"I will charge into the fortress alone. Should it still standing by the sundown, proceed with the assumption that I'm dead."

"One question." Darkness halted me. "What are we for you? What are comrades for you? How much do our lives worth for you?"

"None of those meant anything for me."

"Lies. You—"

"You know nothing about me. I—I was always alone. Nobody know who I am, who I was. I killed the last person who remember the hollow dregs that I am. I murdered the last thing who understand me."

"Then answer this. What is justice, what is humanity's worth for you?"

" _I don't care in the slightest about those thing._ "

"Then go and die. I won't sully my sword with your filthy blood, so go as far away as possible."

I turned my back, walking towards the Demon King's stronghold.

-a-

"Magnificent." Among the ruins of the castle, the dying Demon King laughed. "You killed a goddess, the only one who understand you, to kill me. Magnificent! Magnificent indeed!"

"Explosion." Hot air expanded around us, but neither budged. "Explosion. Explosion. Explosion."

The combined explosive power might rival an atomic bomb by now, but even as ashes, the Demon King laughed.

"Tell me, human. _Does it fucking worth it?_ "

" _You know damn well it's not. It's never fucking worth it._ "

And then, along with the painful silence, the Demon King died, along with the lost adventurer in the edge of humanity.

-a-

A pair of girls with blonde and black hair cried in front of a glowing blue corpse, the sweeping faraway shockwave fluttering their hairs.

-a-

 **riyangendut out.**


End file.
